Linux Shell Group exists

[JeroenDries]

Hi everyone,

I was looking for some code to check wheter a group exists or not in shell.
Without going throug the entire /etc/group file.

For users i found this:

if id USERID > /dev/null 2>&1
then
echo "User exists"
else
echo "User non existant." 
fi

[Daniel_B]

Is there an issue with going though the etc/group file? Everything I dug up uses it.

[shabir_imam]

Is there an issue with going though the etc/group file? Everything I dug up uses it.

You are not doing any operation on /etc/group file except searching a strin. So, I don't think so ther will be any issue.
Use the follwing command to check the existence of group.
grep -i "^groupname" /etc/group